Schuyler's farewells had been but tentative. It had been understood that, should the storm abate, Mrs. Schuyler, Muriel and Blake would follow on the next train; for he himself was forced by the exigency of his mission to reach the city at least two hours before sailing time.
The car, returning from the trip to the depot, was again called into service. Parks, as well, had waited, and went with them.
Reaching the city, Blake's machine, for which he had telephoned from Larchmont, was waiting; and in this they made the journey through the traffic-thronged New York streets, to the dock; a route that leads one from wealth to poverty, from respectability to license, from well—doing to ill-doing, and through all that lies between.
The dock, beside which lay tugging at her cables the huge liner, was confusion thrice confused. Jolting cabs, rattling taxis, smooth-running private cars, drays and vans, added to the tumult caused by the hundred— the thousands—of hurrying, scurrying humanity. Came the calls of excited passengers, the rumbling of trucks, the Babel-like voices of emigrants; and, beyond, the noises of the Great River.
Alighting from the car at the gangway, they boarded the ship, with its
crowded decks. Schuyler's stateroom was aft, in the center of the ship.
It lay the first door to the right, as one enters the narrow passageway.
To it the little party made its way.
The door of the room opposite was ajar. Blake noticed that there lay therein a great mass of crimson roses; scattered amid the toilet articles and accessories of a woman. Passing through the crowds of the deck, he had heard, also, The Man Who Knew telling another man, who did not know of Young Parmalee. It had been but a word. But it had been a word that had found fructification and meaning in the sight of a deck steward, with a bucket, mopping up something from the deck, just outside the little passageway.
Kathryn and Muriel, seen safely to the room that Schuyler was to occupy, Blake returned and made his way out upon the deck. He stood for a moment by the steward, watching him.
Then very quietly inquired:
"Where did it happen, Steward?"
The steward, wringing out the mop into the dark water of his bucket, looked up. There were beads of sweat upon his bronzed, wrinkled brow. Yet the day was not warm.